Virtual Lecture: Exploration of New Chemical Reactivities for Synthetic Efficiency
Lecture held on: February 24, 2021
Presenter
Prof. Chao-Jun Li β Department of Chemistry and FQRNT Center for Green Chemistry and Catalysis, McGill University, οΌontreal, Canada
The efficient making of new molecules is central to any new product in the pharmaceutical, materials science, microelectronics, and biotech industries. On the other hand, organometallic chemistry has played the central role in classical organic syntheses by forming carbon-carbon bonds via the well established 1) nucleophilic additions (such as to carbonyls, e.g. Grignard reaction), 2) conjugate additions, and 3) modern various cross coupling reactions. In spite of their enormous successes, the classical organometallic reactions have inherent limitations: a) it requires the stoichiometric metals and often organic halides, which need to be pre synthesized, and generating stoichiometric metal halides waste to deal with at the end of reaction; b) the classical organometallic reagents are often highly reactive and dangerous to work with, and c) these reagents cannot tolerate water and functional groups, which need to be removed or protected, leading to extensive steps and operations. Over the past few decades, Prof. Chao-Jun Li has been exploring various unconventional chemical reactivities that can potentially simplify synthesis, by eliminating all the above limitations of classical organometallic chemistry, thus decreasing overall waste, increasing synthetic efficiency and maximizing resource utilization.